Can the WASTATE Dems Compete?

Our local Bernieoids are especially upset but I see them as part of the problem. They think Bernie’s minions

could win in a landslide pf Trump troops seeing the light. This is bullshit. Bernie’s chosen acolytes lost in last November’s races across the US except here in Seattle where Pramila Jayapal beat another liberal, Brady Walkinshaw. Her victory was Trump like, built on a faux reality attack on Brady’s credentials including a not so subtle attack on his activities as a gay activist. A Pyrrhic victory like this is meaningless if the Democrats want to actually win blue seats. Reichert and Herrera, are two most vulnerable GOP regulars , should be beat and I think McMorris could lose as well … but only if the state party does the work to recruit and then support APPROPRIATE candidates.

I say APPROPRIATE because it is not at all clear that the Bernieoids, the unions that support them with off the record dark money, avowed socialists, etc. are even to support the kind of person who can win in purple districts. I was shocked at the Jayapal treated Brady Walkinshaw in our last cycle! Joe Pakootas, running against McMorris Rodgers for Congress got NO support from Bernies, while 100s of thousands pored into the Jayapal campaign. Joe might not have won, but he certainly would have built the kind of base that could win in a CD that has the sort of changing demography we see across the rural US .. Hispanics and young techies.

The left catechism is not friendly to these new voters. The litmus tests of the left can be as foolish as the ones used by the Tea Party! The change is even true in Seattle. I have met many outstanding folks I call corporate democrats, successful in business, who simply reject the Democrats because of issue swith doctrinaire stands from H1b visas to charter school.

The Bernieoid enthusiasm has as much faddishness as Trumo’s red hats. Politics as a long game. Supporting Joe Pakootas, for example, would would have helped put roots down in Spokane.